game_design_snacksfandomcom-20200213-history
The algorithm is stacked against you!
A recent trend usually found with games as free downloadable apps is a need to find a way to get their users to pay for extras with in the game. In order to achieve a monetary gain, the developers will create algorithms where a player playing too long consecutively will find the game increasing in difficulty, usually to a point that the game is impossible. The hope is that this will drive the player to want to advance faster, and the only way to do that is to purchase the extras offered in the store. Games are meant to be binged. This method makes the game impossible to do this. The easy solution would be to have a higher up front cost, rather than effecting gameplay in order to produce monetary gains. Clash Royale is a very interesting game, but it becomes very clear that playing the game too much in one sitting leads to losing matches. Upgrade a character and the player is back to winning. It ruins the desire to keep playing knowing the game is against a player winning too much too fast. Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time In 2013, PopCap launched Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time. Not only did they improve on the original in terms of gameplay and variety, they also employed a bunch of clever tactics to get the player hooked and needlessly spend money. By intricately entangling in-game coins, stars and keys, PopCap very cunningly trapped players into doing either one of two things to access levels; either play each level repeatedly to accumulate sufficient quantities of coins, stars and keys or purchase them using in-app purchases. Its clear as a bell how they made their money! Dig It! This game is an endless stream of opportunities to accendently spend money. Every popup window has an opportunity to purchase some in game item for real money. The game is set so it's easy to sell everything you have on accident. The only way to recover is either through lots of time or by spending money. Arbitrary time restraints make the game impossible to play after a few minutes. You are forced to come back in order to accomplish anything. They want the game to become habitual so you feel like you have to check on it all the time. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes In this RPG mobile game you assemble your favorite heroes from the Star Wars Universe and compete against other teams as well as several different campaign modes focused either on light, dark or combined forces. As you play the game not only do they limit time played by implementing energy you use to play but the AI system increases by so much that you start to wonder if it's worth playing anymore. At certain campaign levels the enemy AI is able to attack two and sometimes three times before you are able to do anything. Not only is your team slaughtered but raising your characters level is often difficult because of the energy rule in the game meaning I get 100 energy a day and 6 battles later I have to put my phone down for the day and pick it up the next. The game is a lot of fun but because of some of their updates to the game it is almost impossible to achieve any real progress given their parameters. Oh and by the way if you lose a battle you don't get any experience points. So not only do you get six battles a day but you also don't want to push to far ahead because you won't get any rewards for the day. Category:Bad Snack